Eddie Willis, the original Motown Funk Brother whose muted, propulsive guitar style earned him the nickname "Chank," died Monday (Aug. 20) at age 82. Eddie Willis, the original Motown Funk Brother ...

Detroit, MI (CBS Detroit) - In this, our second installment of the celebration of Motown, Lisa Germani sits down with Beth Griffith-Manley, daughter of legendary Funk Brother Johnny Griffith. As a ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Funk Brothers guitar players Eddie Willis, left, of Grenada, Mississippi, and Joe Messina, right, of Warren, share a laugh during ...

Joe Messina, the prolific guitarist whose work with the Funk Brothers can be heard on an array of Motown classics, died Monday, April 4, the Detroit Free Press reports. He was 93. Messina died at his ...

Thanks to the success of the 2002 documentary "Standing in the Shadows of Motown," the Funk Brothers, ostensibly the musical backbone to Motown's golden era, have finally garnered recognition with… By ...

The Bay Area's legendary Motown On Mondays party series lands in Brooklyn on April 4th with an all-star lineup of selectors including DJ's Tara, Tap.10, Mawkus, Still Life and DStrukt. Preserving the ...

It was like an old-time Motown revue at New York's Apollo Theatre last night (Nov. 7) as Mary Wilson, Ashford & Simpson, Mario, and others sang in tribute to the Funk Brothers, the musicians behind… ...

Marvin Gaye was a cocaine paranoid living with his parents when his father shot him during an altercation the day before his 45th birthday. According to Motown, Gerald Posner's sobering exposé of ...

DETROIT (AP) — Prominent Motown studio musician and Funk Brothers member Bob Babbitt, whose bass playing pounded through the Temptations hit "Ball of Confusion" and Marvin Gaye's "Mercy Mercy Me (The ...

You may not know Eddie “Chank” Willis’ name, but you know his sound. The electric guitarist from the three-time Grammy Award winning Funk Brothers session band played on almost every single Motown hit ...

Acouple of days ago, the Funk Brothers were on a bus outside Pittsburgh, about to head to a gig in Toronto. “We’re loading up some Diet Pepsi, but it should be Diet Coke,” joked the percussionist Jack ...

Joe Messina, a jazz guitarist whose work with the Funk Brothers helped build the bedrock of the Motown sound, died Monday in Northville. He was 93. Messina, a longtime Warren resident, died at 4 a.m.